Taste: Tamdhu 15 Year Old 1980's

My recent trip to Speyside included a tour of Tamdhu distillery; an overlooked whisky that has only recently restarted production. The tour itself caught my imagination and the subsequent tastings I've had of Tamdhu formed a new appreciation of this almost invisible and forgotten Speysider.

When the opportunity to taste a Tamdhu from the 1980's presented itself, well I couldn't miss out. This is a 15 year old Tamdhu bottled sometime during that decade so conceivably it may have been distilled during the late 60's or more likely during the 1970's. Either way its before the advent of computerised Scotch and potentially a time capsule.

Distillery: Tamdhu
Age: 15 years old
Strength: 43%
Additional: this is the rare 1980's stopper bottle version rather than the standard bottle shape.

Colour: straw

Aroma: floral notes to the fore assisted by heather, then a fruity layer with peaches, white grapes and apples rounded off by a touch of ginger.

Taste: a very gentle example, subtle and somewhat shy. A certain sweetness with candied sugar with a dollop of cream on top of an apple tart.

Lovely stuff really, not in your face that many malts today are. This is a fine dram for a summer evening when you can sit back, relax and enjoy its refreshing qualities.